


Colour of My Blood

by fear_on_fire



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: A bit of angst in the middle, Auras and Connections, Coming of Age, Fluff, HEA for most characters, Hurt/Comfort, I've warned you, Jiper, Juniper x Grover, Multi, No Demigods, Paul x Sally, Please don't plagiarize this story, Reyna x Leo, Romance, Soulmates AU, Soulmates and Connections, Sweet, Thaluke - Freeform, a bit of everything really, caleo - Freeform, frazel - Freeform, no one's dead, percabeth, solangelo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-05 21:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12802830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fear_on_fire/pseuds/fear_on_fire
Summary: 'The rest of the world was black and white, but we're in screaming colour' - Out of the Woods, Taylor SwiftWhen Annabeth Chase moves to New York, she didn't expect happiness. She certainly did not expect love.In a world where everyone has a connection to people in their lives, Annabeth Chase is just finding herself - and recovering from a broken heart. When she runs into Percy Jackson (quite literally) she doesn't know what to think because he's cute and sweet but goddamn annoying and he's her best friend.(And she loves him.)[Her connection to him is blood red.]Shit.She's screwed.~ where Annabeth is stubborn, Percy is oblivious and together, they are a beautiful mess ~





	1. Amethyst Blue

**Author's Note:**

> A note: This story was recently plagiarized on fanfiction.net and it's with great hesitation that I'm posting it here, because I don't want it to occur again. It's a story that's close to my heart because I've worked over it for more than six months. Please leave a review or kudos if you like it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annabeth has a perfect life, the perfect family, the perfect house, the perfect future, the perfect everything.
> 
> But it's not meant to last, is it?
> 
> ~ where Annabeth's world falls apart, and a few things are revealed from the dark ~

When Annabeth was younger, life was perfect.

She lived in the big house on the edge of town with her Mom and Dad, she was doing well in school and she loved architecture. Her mother dropped her to school, every day and went to work. Dad stayed at home in his huge office filled with strange devices and big books that he read to her at night. Her mother picked her up, after school was done and they went home to cheesy TV shows and dinner prepared by her Dad. It was normal. It was perfect.

Annabeth loved it.

Until it all came tumbling down like a house of cards.

She was twelve. Middle school was pretty good. She’d designed and constructed a treehouse all by herself in the backyard – well, maybe not _all_ by herself: Dad had helped with the heavy stuff. (Her best friend, Thalia Grace, loved to pretend it was a ship and they were on a treasure hunt, but she thought it was silly and childish.) She was _happy_.

But she was afraid, too – because the shouts which echoed down the hall at night, and the slam of the front door accompanied by her dad’s heavy footsteps, were getting worse everyday. She’d brushed it off initially – Dad had once told her that it was natural to have fights with someone you love. But slowly, they became more serious. It wasn’t about who-forgot-what anymore. Sometimes, her Mom yelled at her Dad, using ugly words and screams of anger.

But she knew everything would be alright.

After all, they _loved_ each other, didn’t they?

But that fateful autumn day showed how wrong she was.

She had first felt the pangs of fear and apprehension when her mother hadn’t come to pick her up from school. Mom and Dad had been fighting a lot more, lately. She tried not to be worried. She did. But her Mom had _never_ not come to pick her up. Something was very wrong, like a raging storm in the middle of spring.

She got into the school bus - filled with boisterous, deafening noise and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich missiles, after Ms. Forrester informed her that her mother was not coming. The world from the bus window was different from what she saw in her Mom’s car, she noticed. She sat next to Malcolm, the guy who was her partner in Math. He was cool. He helped her take her mind off her parents for a while. At least, until she hopped off at her stop and swung the front door open, to her home.

The first thing she noticed was the _suitcases_.

It was everywhere, and of every shape and size imaginable. Were they moving? Or was it old stuff?

The fear would not let go.

She called out to her parents, but received no response. The pangs became worse. Muffled shouts were echoing from above, so she bounded up the stairs, and into Dad’s office, from where she’d heard them.

She wished she hadn’t.

Dad was behind his table, definitely angry, gesturing at something with his hands. Mom was in a chair in front of him, calm and cool, devoid of emotion. Dad stopped talking – Annabeth couldn’t make out what he said, but she heard her mother’s next words as clear as day. “I’ll be leaving for the next flight to Boston. Don’t contact me. Don’t ever try to meet me. This is the end, Frederick. I cannot continue to live like this. I want to be free. I _need_ to be free.”

Each word was like a stab wound in Annabeth’s small heart. _Mom is leaving? What about me? Never talk to her again? Boston? What is going on?_ A million thoughts speeded like bullets through her head. But she couldn’t move.

They did not notice her. Her Dad’s expression was twisted with anger and grief, but her mom remained impassive. Cold. “What about Annabeth?” her father asked, voicing her own thoughts.

And Annabeth’s mother uttered the words which shattered her heart. “What about her? She has never been nothing but a hindrance to my career. She was never meant to be. I willingly give you her full custody. Now, if there is nothing else to talk about, I have a fl-“

“A _hindrance?_ Never meant to be? What are you talking about, Athena? Don’t you love her?” If it was possible, her father looked even more heartbroken. Athena paused, looking conflicted. Annabeth looked up, blinking away the blurriness in her eyes. Maybe Mom didn’t mean it.

“No.”

And just with that one syllable, Annabeth’s perfectly constructed world collapsed. Crashed and burned like it was not meant to survive.

“Mom?”

Her parents turned to the doorway, to where she stood. She could feel the pressure building behind her eyes, choking her. Suffocating her. Her father looked devastated and sad. Her mother looked like a statue.

_Yes. That was what she was. A statue. Nowhere near a human being._

“Did you really mean that?” Stupid, _stupid_ heart. It would never let go. Her mother only stared at her with those cold grey eyes, boring into her like ice-cold stone. Was that how _she_ looked when she stared at someone? Annabeth hoped not.

“Momma?” She did not answer. “Mom, _please_.”

After five minutes of heavy, laden, pained silence, Annabeth’s sorrow turned into something she’d never experienced before. It felt as though her insides were burning up, being eaten away by the fire which burned bright. “I _hate_ you. I _hate_ you. I wish I never see you again. You are not my Mom anymore. _GO. AWAY._ ” She was yelling, her throat scratchy and tears stinging her eyes. She kept repeating the words, _Go away. Go away. Go away. Go…_

Annabeth’s father ran to her and hugged her, cradling her shaking body and whispering sweet nothings in her ear. The only thing she could make out was, “I’m here, Annabee, I’m here.”

And that was enough. Her Dad was there. Annabeth would survive. She buried her face in his shoulder and cried and cried and cried for God knows how long. She could hear her Mom’s sharp heels tapping the floor till the front door. And soon after, she heard the familiar purr of the car.

Annabeth wanted to break away from her dad’s arms, run to the driveway and stop her mother from leaving.

But her legs felt like jelly and her heart like lead, weighing down on her, preventing her from moving an inch.

She wanted to tell Mom that she didn’t mean it. She didn’t hate her. She didn’t want her to go away. And would she please _just come back?_

But she just _couldn’t._

So, she cried.

“Annabee, my baby girl,” her father whispered. “Annabeth, stop crying, my darling. It’ll be alright. Shhh. It’ll be alright, now.” She lifted her head and looked into her Dad’s sad eyes. And frowned.

“Daddy…”

“Shh, it’s okay-“

“ _Dad!”_

“What’s wrong, baby girl?” He asked, leaning down to kiss her cheek. The weird red glow followed him.

“Daddy, you’re _glowing._ ” He looked confused for a second before his expression was replaced by a sad humour.

 _“Ah_. You found your gift, Annabeth. Your Mom and…” he stopped abruptly, eyes flashing with anger, “Well, _I_ thought that you didn’t have one, it didn’t show for so long.” Seeing that it didn’t help Annabeth’s confusion in the least, Frederick sat her on her lap. “Annabeth do you remember the stories of true love and friendship I used to tell you?”

Annabeth nodded. “From _those_ books?” She asked, pointing to the shelf which had always belonged to her night time stories. Her father chuckled and said, “Yes. Do you remember the poem which was mentioned in one of them?”

Annabeth frowned. “It wasn’t a poem.”

“Why not?”

“Because it didn’t _rhyme_.”

Her Dad chuckled a bit more heartily. “Alright, Annabee, it didn’t rhyme. _I_ made it up.”

“I knew that too. You never looked at the book when you told it to me.”

“You are a sneaky little thing, aren’t you?” His sorrow and pain seemed almost non-existent as he looked at his daughter, amused by her words. But even Annabeth’s young, twelve-year-old mind could know that the pain he must have been going through was immense. “Well, anyway, remember the _colours?_ ”

“Yes, Dad. But why-?” Annabeth asked impatiently. How did this relate to the _glow_ surrounding her dad – which was fading, even as she spoke?

“Don’t be so impatient, Bee. You say that you remember, yes?” Annabeth nodded. “Tell me the poem.”

“But-“

“ _Annabeth.”_

“Fine,” she huffed, searching her memory for the words she had heard a long time ago, cocooned under a warm comforter and wrapped into her father’s big arms. “ _Red for the one you truly love, orange for the one you don’t; Yellow for a friend who’s always there, green for the one who’s not; Blue for the family closest to your heart, indigo and violet too; White for the ones you really don’t know, grey for the ones you don’t want to,”_ she recited, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

“Hmm, I’d forgotten it myself. I would make a good songwriter, I think,” he mused, rocking a little.

“ _Please,_ dad. It’s _lame.”_

“It’s not.”

“It _is_.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Annabeth giggled a bit, the pain and confusion over her mother’s untimely departure vanishing. Her dad _always_ knew how to cheer her up. “But _why_ are you telling me this now?”

Her dad’s grin melted and a serious expression crossed his face. “Do you remember how true friends always were surrounded by yellow and soulmates by red?” Annabeth nodded.

“It’s not a fairy tale, Annabeth. Those are real.” Her dad’s blue eyes looked into her confused grey ones.

Annabeth giggled and barely resisted another roll of her eyes, saying matter-of-factly, “Dad, you are joking right? Fairy tales are _illogical,_ they do not exist.”

Her father shook his head. “Who said anything about logic? It is nature’s way of telling us that we cannot exist without human contact. Every person, even _you_ ,” Dad tapped her nose. “is connected to several people you probably can’t live without. Call it magic, mystery, anything you’d like, but it is very _real_.”

“Real?” she whispered. “Yes, real. The thing you see around me? It’s called an aura – it shows what you think of the other person.”

“Who’s this other person?” she asked, hungry for more information. Her brain was whirring, thinking of all the possibilities there could be regarding this ‘aura’.

“The person you share a connection with.”

“What is a _connection_?”

“Exactly what it means. It’s how you show that you are related the ‘other person’ in some way.”

“What?” Annabeth cocked her head to one side. It was fascinating, more so, because her father explained like it was something special, something to be treasured. Annabeth felt like she couldn’t get enough of it.

“A ‘connection’ is like a string – it leads to the person you have any kind of relationship with. Like you and me.” Annabeth’s eyes opened wide with wonder. “You and I,” her dad said, poking her belly, “have a blue connection. It’s a pretty blue. Do you see it?” Annabeth shook her head. Beside the almost-faded red, she could not see anything else.

“Hmm, I wonder what kind of gift you have then.”

“What is a _gift_?”

“Most people cannot see auras and connections. But there are some special people. Like you and I. We can see them – maybe all of them, maybe specific coloured ones but we can _see_ more. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. It makes you believe that humanity is real,” her Dad said. He had a faraway look in his eyes, like he was remembering a past which was no longer there.

“What is your gift, Dad?”

“Hmm? Oh, I can see all similar connections lying in the violet-blue spectrum.”

“What does that mean?”

“I can see all connections between family – like between a brother and sister, or mother and daughter…” he trailed off uncomfortably. A heavy silence fell on the darkened room. The red around her father had disappeared. She couldn’t see his brilliantly coloured eyes anymore.

She asked the question hanging down on her, after a while. “Does Mom have a blue connection to me?” Her voice sounded smaller than it had ever been.

Her father sighed heavily. “Yes, my darling, she did. But… but it changed the moment she said that she…”

“I get it. The moment she said that she didn’t love me.” Her tone was harsh, so unlike her. The single, hateful syllable which her mom had last said in front of her, echoed in her head, _No._

The silence stretched a little while longer.

“The red isn’t there anymore, Dad.”

“Is it? I wonder…” he trailed off, silent again for a few minutes. And those few moments were enough for her to realize the gravity of the situation.

_She’s not here, she’s gone. She’s gone. Never coming back. She’s gone and she doesn’t love me. Forever._

“She’s never coming back, is she?” Annabeth asked in a tight voice, choking back the tears threatening to fall on her cheeks. “She’s _gone_. Forever.”

Her dad seemed so, _so_ sad – for her and for himself. His arms encased her in a warm cocoon, as if it would protect her from all the pain and grief and longing which was invading her heart. “Oh, Annabeth. Come on, now. Let’s get some sleep,” Frederick said, picking her small body, curled up in a foetal position. Her hands immediately wound around his neck in a white-knuckled grip. She felt the gentle rocking of his movements as he carried her to her room. When he kissed her forehead and made to leave, she gripped his elbow.

“No, please, Daddy, I-I d-d-don’t w-w-w-want t-to b-b-be a-a-a-alone. _P-p-please.”_ She clung on as tight as she good, hot tears warming her cool cheeks. She murmured incoherently, trying to get the scenes of her dad’s office out of her head. It seemed as though someone had pressed the replay button a hundred times and had tied her down to watch it, forcibly, to torture her, to break her already broken heart.

She was afraid. She was so, so afraid.

“Alright, baby girl. I won’t leave you. Never in my life. I swear to you,” her father told her, kissing her forehead softly. All she remembered was the faint rustling as her Daddy settled on the floor beside her and the fainter rush of the breeze through the leaves on the oak tree outside her window


	2. Emerald Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her world is dead, but she's a survivor. She will survive. But first there are a few changes she needs to make.
> 
> ~ where Annabeth learns about the new things she can see, and new beginnings come knocking on the door ~

Over the next few days, Annabeth learned a lot about her gift – and herself.

When she went to school the next day, to Thalia’s concerned questions about her red eyes and depressed frown, she almost reeled back in surprise at the burst of new colours around her. Her friends and classmates were suddenly surrounded by every colour described in a rainbow – and more. Many didn’t have the ‘auras’. Some auras were just _white_. Others were as greay as a cloud on a stormy day.

Annabeth was overwhelmed and fascinated. She looked at Jack Connor, the chief troublemaker in her class, and he had a sunny yellow around him. She followed the bright yellow down to his right hand, and from there, it just… _continued._ It was like a thick rope made of sunshine, if such a thing could exist. Annabeth’s eyes followed its trail and she frowned. It seemed as though it was leading straight to… Kim Geller, but there was something weird about it… It seemed as though the yellow from Jack gradually turned darker and darker until it became a sunset orange in the middle, Kim herself was surrounded by a brilliant, flaming orange.

What did _that_ mean?

Kim laughed at something Jack said and walked away, waving her goodbye. The yellow-orange colours disappeared with her.

 _Curiouser and curiouser,_ she’d once read in _Alice in Wonderland_. That was exactly how she felt right now, like the earth had shifted and put her in a world she didn’t know.

She turned on her heel slowly, taking in the connections that she could see. All of them were like the one she saw – different colours, the connections slowly changing colours as it reached the other person. _Red to orange to yellow, gray to white, yellow to green…_ There were just _so_ many. Annabeth felt that if she’d been a painter, she would have definitely wanted to paint this.

 _Maybe… maybe this is my_ gift, Annabeth mused. _I can see connections of different colours. Yes, that must be it._ She wanted to run home and ask her Dad about it, but not right now.

“Annie!” Thalia snapped her fingers in front of her face. Annabeth turned to her best friend and scowled.

Thalia smirked. “I _knew_ that the nickname would work.” Annabeth huffed and hitched her bag a little higher up her back, contemplating whether going to class early was worth it. There was still ten minutes before school actually started, but she thought it was _much_ better than suffering Thalia’s interrogation, which by the look on her face, was very near.

“Are you okay?” _Here it comes._

“Mm-hmm,” Annabeth hummed, not really in the mood to talk about the events of the previous day. It was much too fresh and painful. Annabeth didn’t think that she had really understood it herself. “Your dad told my mom… what happened,” she began, blue eyes hesitant. _Oh, great, I don’t have to tell her anyway._

“Yeah. Shit happens. Life goes on. The end,” Annabeth replied, mildly snappy. She did _not_ want the pity party.  “You don’t have to be a bitch, Annabeth. Remember what my Dad did?” Thalia asked, looking hurt and angry. Annabeth lowered her defence, giving Thalia an apologetic one-armed hug. Thalia didn’t deserve her unfair anger – she _definitely_ had it better than the Grace siblings.

Thalia Grace was the daughter of the local millionaire. She had everything – a mansion, a sweet younger brother, a great mom, a dad who was absent most of the time – but _seemed_ kind and benevolent. At least until Thalia caught her Dad on a ‘date’ with some bimbo.

Apparently, they’d been having an affair for six years, right under their noses and even though Thalia’s mom had her suspicions, she kept mum about it and deluded herself into thinking that her husband was perfectly innocent. Thalia’s discovery had been the wake-up call and she was currently in the middle of a long, ugly divorce. Thalia’s father wanted custody of Jason, her nine-year-old younger brother, but Ms. Grace refused to give that at any cost. Thalia had told Annabeth a week before, with sad eyes, that Zeus, her dad, would probably win the case and take Jason away from her, forever.

“I’m sorry, Thals, but… I can’t talk about it. Not right now.” Annabeth mustered a small twitch of the lips as an excuse for a smile but Thalia didn’t seem to mind.

“I know. That’s why I won’t ask about it,” she promised, holding out a bag of saltwater taffy – her favourite. Annabeth squealed in a very un-Annabeth-like way and hugged her best friend. Thalia always knew what to do.

* * *

 

When Annabeth told her Dad about what she ‘saw’, several days after she actually discovered it, he seemed surprised.

“Differentiated connections?” he said, over steaming plates of mac-n-cheese. “That’s very rare, you know. Almost everyone is blind to them because it almost covers the whole spectrum – and it’s very hard for the human eye to comprehend the whole spectrum. To think that you can see it with so much ease… you really are a special one, aren’t you?” he teased, ruffling her tangled curls. Annabeth swatted his hand away impatiently, a smile on her face.

They finished the rest of their meal – courtesy of Google because Annabeth’s Dad was a _very_ bad cook and she didn’t know a thing about making pasta - in silence. Annabeth switched on their favourite show, _Friends,_ while her father did the dishes and was smiling at a sarcastic response by Chandler when her dad plopped down beside her.

“Here,” he said, handing over a small, but thick book to her. It looked old and worn, but in the sense that someone had read it many times over. It was wrapped in a deep-blue hardcover and had gold embossed writing. _The Spectrum of Humanity._ There was no author’s name beneath it, but it was pretty.

“What is this?” She questioned, examining it thoroughly. The pages were yellowed with time, but it seemed intact.

“This,” her dad said, “is the Holy Grail for human auras and connections. No one knows who wrote it, or when it was written, but here it is… and we have been following its advice for a long, long time. So keep it safe, Annabeth,” he instructed her, patting her honey-blonde hair, so much like his own.

But Annabeth wasn’t paying much attention, responding with a slight nod of her head. She began to turn the pages, the rustling of sheets the only sound over the voices emitted by the TV.

“This was Mom’s,” she began abruptly, more a statement than a question. She could see it everywhere – the impeccably maintained bookmark, the neat cursive and the way she’d highlighted small portions of the book with little notes and demarcations. “Wasn’t it?”

The elephant in the room had finally been addressed. It was funny, really – how every single trace of her mom, from her pictures to her perfume – had been removed in less than two weeks. It was almost as if she’d never lived there. But Annabeth knew that she could not ignore it for too long – however fresh and raw the pain of loss was, she suspected that it would only get worse by waiting. And she thought that her Dad knew it too. _Well, at least we’ve got to the point._

“Yes,” her dad sighed. “It was. At least, my mom gave it to her because she wanted to know how the colours looked like. It was a wedding gift.” Dad had that look again – like he was searching for a past which was just out of his reach.

“Why? Couldn’t she see it herself?”

“Your mom could only see grey connections, Annabeth.”

“What does grey represent?”

“You’ll find it all, right here.” He tapped her mom’s cursive.

_From Ella Chase. Thank you for showing me the world I never knew. AC._

“It’s a fascinating thing, Annabeth, but you must remember one thing. You must make your own choices – not let the colours make them for you.”

“Dad, don’t give me such cryptic things. You know I don’t like them.”

“You don’t _have_ to like advice, Annabeth. But I’d rather you take this particular one. You might not understand it just yet, but when the time comes, you will understand how right it was.” There it was again. _The look._

“Alright, Dad. I’ll remember that,” she assured him.

(She’d probably forget in a few minutes.)

“That’s my girl,” Frederick smiled at her as she slid off the couch. A hug and a _g’night_ later, she was ready to go to bed and devour the book.

“Annabeth, wait a second.” She stopped, her hand on the banister of the staircase. “I think its best I tell this to you right now. At least you’ll have time to think over it.”

“Mm-hmm?” Annabeth hummed impatiently. She _really_ wanted to get started with the book. The last twelve days or so had been infuriating and exciting all at the same time – infuriating because she just _didn’t know_ what those iridescent, wispy threads meant, exciting because this was a whole new world she was seeing – a world filled with shades and tones and hues of all kinds. Annabeth thought that maybe, if she knew a bit more about what she was seeing, then it would be all the more beautiful.

“You know that this house belongs to Ath- your mom, right?”

“Yes,” Annabeth answered slowly, playing with the hem of her _You are Owlsome_ tee, a heavy sense of dread settling in her stomach. “And?”

“She’s asking for the house,” Frederick sighed, running a hand through his already messy, ill-maintained hair. “I can’t really deny her the rights of ownership, because technically, it’s… hers.”

“What… what are you trying to tell me, Dad? That we have to move? That’s okay. I’m sure we’ll find a temporary apartment around town. I don’t mind,” Annabeth lied, her heart heaving. She loved this house. The glow-in-the-dark galaxy which was painted all around her room, the silvery hue of the paint, and the way the sunlight fell in long beams on the wooden floor in the evening. But she would gladly sacrifice all of that if it meant that she didn’t have to see her mother again.

She didn’t know where the sudden, deep-rooted hatred came from. Maybe she had been harbouring it ever since her mom left Frederick’s office. Or maybe it was because of the desperation and pain she’d caused. Annabeth did not know. All she knew was the fact that she was ready to pay a million dollars, just so that she never saw those cold grey orbs again.

“No, Annabeth. We aren’t just moving out of this house. We’re moving out of Marion. To New York.”

New York.

_What?_

New York? _New York, which is on the other side of the country?!_ The alarms rang hard and fast in Annabeth’s mind, trying to keep up with the sudden shift in gear.

So much had changed. In such a short span of time too. It felt as though someone was out to destroy her entire reality: the source of her comfort and happiness, completely and thoroughly. First, her mother was _lying_ about Annabeth and her Dad. She loved her career more than anything else, Annabeth knew that now. She was selfish, mean and cruel. What other thing could be worse than that?

_This._

The fact that she had to give up her entire reality, her friends, her school, her home, _everything_ just because of the actions of one woman – who had once claimed to love her.

“B-but why?” Annabeth’s hands were shaking badly, her arms pale and goose-bumps rising on her skin. She was afraid. She was so _damn_ afraid.

“Annabeth, it is our only option. My job here isn’t enough to support the both of us, and I knew we were going to lose the house eventually. So I started searching for jobs, right after your mother upped and left. I found an opening for a professor – in Columbia, no less – and I felt that the opportunity was too good to miss. My application was accepted and they want me to start in January. When Athena emailed me regarding ‘her dues’ as she called it, I knew that it was my best choice.” Annabeth stood frozen, the blue book still clutched tightly in her left hand.

_New York._

“But why can’t we _stay_?” It was a strained whisper, her last shred of hope. Her mind was whirring, considering all the possibilities of the future. _What if we_ did _move to New York? Would it be that bad? Would it be like Marion? Would I feel lonely and homesick there?_ Annabeth knew that she was overthinking it – she always did. But a major part of her wanted to dig her heels into the soft carpet and throw a fit about how she was going to stay right here.

But one look at her Dad’s quasi-hopeful expression squashed that line of thought. He wanted this. He really, _really_ did.

“Because we both deserve a fresh start.” And when her grey eyes met his much older, much sadder blue ones, she knew that she was going to agree anyway.


End file.
